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Friday, October 12, 2012

The Governance Of Democracy Must Win, Autocracy Must Die

Originally Published March 20, 2011; Last Updated October 12, 2012; Last Republished October 12, 2011:

Chinese lawyer for dissident Chen Wei, quoting his client's response after listening to a "judge" sentence him to nine years in prison for inciting subversion of the state:

"The governance of democracy must win, autocracy must die"--Liang Xiaojun quoting Chen Wei--

Chen was imprisoned for writing a series of essays in dissent. His proforma two-hour "dissident trial" occurred after being held incommunicado, impeding his counsel, and harassing his wife and other Chinese supporters (de rigueur treatment for China’s courageous dissidents and their supporters)1.

1. It seems useful to note that by definition any nation operating a given civil society structure, however primitive or advanced will always justify their structure and reflexively use force, coercion, and suppression to maintain it.

Not true you adamantly assert! Fair enough, make your own null list of all nation's civil society structures that seek, encourage or embrace dissidents--your list, at best will include numerous nations that sanctimonious assert their civil society structure is better than another!

But, that begs the question, how does the nation know? It knows when dissidents tell them!

Our nation can do much better than routinely parrot calls for the incorporation of first amendment rights into the Universal Human Rights Declaration (although necessary). Our nation can take the steps to ensure that our civil society structure is entirely consensual and reflexively responsive to dissidents (hint: you'll need to abandon the use of force, coercion, and suppression).